


Stewing

by NepentheERA



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Lucio cannot be contained, Tension, argument, bunnyribbit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26234380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NepentheERA/pseuds/NepentheERA
Summary: Tension broils as D.Va insists on trying to help an uncooperative Lúcio. Can she relieve the pressure?Yet another short drabble.
Relationships: Lúcio Correia dos Santos/Hana "D.Va" Song
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Stewing

Hana tip-toed up the shadowed staircase, her arms spread out like a scarecrow’s in an effort to temper the rustle of her black-and-pink windbreaker. Yellow light poured from her destination and lay over the top of the hall. Before she took the step that would illuminate her she crouched and started to crawl. She rose like a patient cobra until her eyes cleared the landing, and around the corner where the light shone sat Lúcio at the far end of the bedroom. He pulled away from the windowsill with a piqued sigh and scratched his sternum until his hunch told him to turn around to the doorway. His insides froze. He jumped back with a wince.

“Ow! What the—!” A ghost? No, the squint was too judgmental. “I’m not goin’ anywhere! Jeez....”

Her eyes got thinner. She rushed back down the stairs and began opening cans. Hana agreed; she shouldn’t have had to hover over him. But around an hour ago she returned from the grocery store with a surprise stuffed down inside two shopping bags. While unpacking something told her she should make sure Lúcio was doing better, or at least not coming down stairs to lay eyes on the spoils of her odyssey. The moment she made it to his door frame however:

“LÚCIO!”

He was one step out of the window. His head whipped over his shoulder and darted between her gaping, twitching expression and the street hockey game at the end of the block. He only got out a stutter before she seized him and hauled him back in the room with one good heave. His foot, encased in an orthopedic boot, swung like a pendulum down into the corner of a chair. He shrieked. His struggle switched to a panicked flail before he craned into the air above Hana's head and was dropped onto the bed.

“What are you doing?!”

“I was—!” He exhaled, and while fixing the shoulder strap of a frayed tank top he sat back up. “I was just gonna...you know... _watch_ the game over there.”

“You were going to play, like a moron!”

“Hey, no, that’s not fair! You can’t ignore my emphasis! I said ‘watch!’”

She pulled at her hair ends.

“.... I can _goalie._ ”

“You aren’t even good enough to get away from me! Dummy!”

She snatched up and swung a pillow at him with such venom that he didn’t dare think to reciprocate, and he unfurled and stared at her like an abandoned fawn.

“Just sit there. Just _sit_ there,” she said through smiling teeth, “ _Just sit there._ ”

And there he sat, to ruminate, and grumble, and huff about. To get angrier than he already was. The pillow didn’t hurt, but he knew she wanted it to. And for what? His Amplifier would be fixed soon and he’d be healed, so why did it matter what he did on his stupid ankle? He’d been holed up in his bedroom for three days. Three long, brain-dead, wasted days. Surfaces and furniture needed to be wiped down and maintained elsewhere in the house. _His_ house. He was no invalid. He could walk, with concentration, but she forbade him from all domestic activities except being on his computer composing. Yet there was no spark, no inspiration or impetus. He wasn’t allowed to experience anything with which to fuel the process. His creativity had dried up like cheap flowers, and his body wasn’t far behind. Everyday he felt more drained and withered, as if his blood and bile were evaporating through his skin. Showers became his only reprieve. They not only got the stench of laze off and kept him away from Hana, but he had to get out of that vile boot to take them. And he got to do it all on his own.

Hana gestured into a warm pot with a fork like a conductor. She’d tied her jacket around her waist in response to the inflating heat in the kitchen; the stove was on to simmer a brownish-black concoction. Her expression suggested that something was wrong with the pot’s contents, but the rice had come out perfect. That stunt of his was insane. _At least lead with the unbroken foot like a smart person._ His frog mascot made sense now: persistent, apathetic, bullheaded. Why make it hard for her? The heartbreak in his face when the x-rays came back superseded both the pain from when he initially cracked his ankle on a failed trick and the interim of misery between refusing opioids and finding a substitute, so she volunteered to keep watch over him. Take some of the pressure off. And for some godforsaken reason he would have none of it. Every other second he was asking if she needed help cleaning, or if she wanted him to cook, all in a presumptuous, know-it-all tone. Her answer was always the same; besides, nothing would get done with him hobbling around anyway! She would’ve been a legitimately horrible human being to leave him to his own devices at this point, so she stirred the rice, fork now in a fist.

“I _swear_ Dae-Hyun didn’t have it this bad.”

When she last fought the Gwishin omnics in Korea, she almost sacrificed herself in an explosion to take them out. She’d been put down with a broken leg and wrist, along with other internal bits of damage. And on best friend Dae-Hyun’s orders, she rested…somewhat. Her other faithful battle partner, the exploding MEKA Tokki, needed some care too, but she was the most capable of the two in keeping Tokki up. The Gwishin could come again at any time, and besides the maintenance passed the time. But Dae-Hyun helped.... A little less, and a little less, and less still, as she discovered useful and hacky ways to go about her day while restricted in those casts, always calling him over to demonstrate her creativity and wit.

“Oh my God.”

The fork clattered against the side of the pot. Hana staked her elbows onto the counter top and covered her face. A whine seeped through her fingers. After a few slaps to the temples she rolled her eyes with a guttural moan and turned off the stove's eye. Into a bowl went two scoops of rice, topped with the dark brown soup, and a spoon for civility. She returned to his doorway with it. Lúcio was still at the windowsill but this time didn’t bother with a look.

“I _said_ I’m not going anywhere.”

She tightened her lips; she deserved that sass. The ruffle of parting carpet caused him to glance at her as she pulled up a chair. He returned to the hockey game in the nervous hopes that his focus on the life being lived beyond the window would make her dismiss herself. He groaned when she stayed and nestled his head into the crook of his elbow. Hana sighed; he looked like an old dog. His breath cinched. A long glide went down his unkempt locks from his scalp. She kept it up, slow and gentle. His eyelids began to shutter towards sleep, and he took his first deep breath since the accident.

“Don’t even try it.”

“I don’t like seeing you all down, Lu.”

“Should I be happy ‘bout this?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, I could be,” he sat up, “If you just _let_ me.”

“.... That’s fair. I don’t know why I thought trying to stop you from cleaning was—”

“It’s not just the cleaning!”

He whipped around to her with an expression that looked as if she’d died herself. Her eyes bulged. She clasped the edges of the bowl until her hands went white.

“I’ve _always_ had to take care of myself. Because if I don’t, who’s gonna help everyone else? I can’t just sit here...and you _know_ that. So leave me alone! I can move on my own just fine enough!”

“Lúcio....”

Her tone was meek, and she looked down. He waited. Finally, she understood. Right?

“No you can’t.”

The crush of an epiphany pressed down over him. His shoulders sagged, and his jaw opened a little. His eyes got a little bigger, and his jaw clenched with a growl as he turned himself back to the game. 

“But...it’s okay.”

“ _No it’s not_ —”

“Lúcio, stop it. You’re not a burden.”

He relaxed and almost whimpered. His body seized up when she began to stroke his hair again. He heard her whisper “silly,” but sunk further into himself.

“You’re right. I know you can’t just sit here. And I shouldn’t have tried to make you, because I never let anyone do that to me. But it’s not wrong to need help. You should know that better than I do.”

“I’ve just never been like... _this._ Trapped in this damn thing.”

“Think of it this way: Problems are gonna happen, and you deal the best you can. Instead of Vishkar or the opposing hockey team, this time it’s a lazy, uncooperative ankle bone.” His lips quivered into a feeble smirk, “You know you’re a good leader, and a good player, even with team mates who help. Well, it's the same thing here. I’ll just...stop trying to carry so much, okay?”

She leaned over to kiss his cheek. He didn’t flinch or withdraw, but finally smiled and glowed in the warmth of love and renewed vigor.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me just yet.” 

Lúcio leaned away from the sudden appearance of a bowl in his face. He sniffed about the rim and found the rustic, savory scent of his mother’s kitchen. He closed in to find a mudslide of beans and precooked bits of barbecue and meat soaking into hills of rice. It was an old sight and comfort, but a gift Hana had to dig deep to find. And to have cooked it herself?

“Feijoada?.... _Hana,_ I—”

“Does it count if it’s made from canned beans?”

“Haha, it does in a pinch.”

Despite how hungry he’d been for real food the past few weeks, to say nothing of a hot serving of feijoada in these trying times, he kept his hands obediently locked around the edge of his seat. He swung his feet back and forth and nodded towards her, and smiled bigger when she rolled her eyes and held out a spoonful for him which he happily embraced.


End file.
